The Hand Lantern makes Bloodborne harder without telling players

If you’ve been using the Hand Lantern in Bloodborne, you’ve been playing Bloodborne in hard mode without realizing it.

The Hand Lantern, an easy access light source that frees up your hands for other weapons, apparently reduces your character’s stamina regeneration speed without telling you. Stamina is the resource used for just about every in-game action there is in Bloodborne. It’s used to dodge, attack, sidestep, and so forth.

A YouTube video published by puenboy1 shows the differences between his character’s stamina regeneration speed when using the lantern with the Hunter Axe weapon, and when he doesn’t have the lantern equipped. On average, players across forums and other videos are saying its taken them about a full second longer to replenish their stamina when using the lantern.